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Igonograntt 



THE SECOND NORMAN 
CONQUEST OF ENGLAND 



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ENGLAND 




to King John at the height of the French invasion. 



THE SECOND 

NORMAN* CONQUEST 

OF ENGLAND 



BY 
CHARLES EDWARD CHENEY 




CHICAGO LITERARY CLUB 
1907 






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** 



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Copyright, 1907 
* CHARLES EDWARD CHENEY 



.1 



PREFATORY NOTE. 

The following sketch had its birth in the 
mind of the writer through his accidental 
possession of a copy of LHistoire des 
Dues de Normandie et des ' Rois d' Angle - 
terre — an anonymous chronicle in ancient 
French, which is supposed by competent 
authorities to have been written in the first 
quarter of the thirteenth century. By so 
distinguished an historian as Petit-Dutaillis 
(whose Life of Louis VIII. of France has 
been of invaluable aid in the preparation of 
this essay), LHistoire des Dues de Nor- 
ma?idie et des Rois d y Angleterre is believed 
to be the work of an eye-witness of the 
scenes and events related. Careful study 
has been given in the preparation of this 
paper to the works of such chroniclers as 
Matthew Paris, Matthew of Westminster, 
Walter of Coventry, and especially Roger 
of Wendover. Among modern histories, 
in addition to La Vie et la Regnc de Louis 
VLIL, by Petit-Dutaillis, Norgate's Life of 
John Lackland, Ramsay's Angevin Empire, 



and Milman's Latin Christianity have 
been freely consulted. 

The writer desires to express his great 
obligation, for valuable suggestions and the 
use of rare historical works, to Professor 
James Westfall Thompson, of the Univer- 
sity of Chicago. 

C. E. C. 




THE SECOND NORMAN 
CONQUEST OF ENGLAND 




N the twenty-first day of 
May in the year of grace 
12 16, 1 a horseman in full 
armor drew rein upon the 
beach where the ancient 
town of Sandwich looks 
out upon the sea. Though 
short of stature, and lack- 
ing the stately presence often associated 
with long lineage and lofty rank, his broad 
shoulders and well-knit frame suggested 
physical strength, while the heavy jaw, not 
wholly hidden by his tawny beard, bespoke 
a man of iron will and a temper it were 
wise not to rouse. a Lifting his mailed 
hand to his forehead to shield his eyes 
from the glare of the morning sun, the 

1 Roger of Wendover, vol. 2, p. 364. Norgate's 
King John, p. 268. 

2 Norgate, p. 10. Ramsay's Angevin Empire, p. 
502. 



rider looked eagerly to the eastward. For 
two days and nights the coast had been 
swept by a tempest so fierce that every 
chronicler of the thirteenth century records 
the story of its terrors. 1 But as the sun 
rose on that memorable day, the almost 
preternatural clarity of the atmosphere 
which sometimes follows a furious storm 
revealed across the English Channel the 
outlines of the shores of France. It was 
not, however, the distant coast-line, hardly 
distinguishable from the yet troubled sea, 
which fixed the attention of that early vis- 
itor. Only a few miles from the British 
coast, and rapidly sweeping before a favoring 
wind toward that southeasternmost point 
of England known as the Isle of Thanet, a 
squadron of seven ships was plainly visi- 
ble. 2 Witnesses of that scene have drawn 
in vivid colors the picture of its effect upon 
their leader. Turning to his trumpeter, 
the horseman ordered him to sound. As 
if the narrow streets of Sandwich and the 
dunes of the shore had given birth to a 
host of men, an army answered to the call. 
Then, seized with indecision, the chief gave 
the signal for retreat. As his puzzled 
troops withdrew, he gave himself up to 
impotent rage. Spurring his horse till its 

1 Hist, des Dues de Normandie, p. 168. Petit- 
Dutaillis, Vie de Louis VIII., p. 99. 

2 Petit-Dutaillis, p. 100. Histoire de la Marine 
Francaise, p. 309. 



flanks were wet with blood, he rode at a 
mad pace — now north — now south, up 
and down the sands of Pegwell Bay, vent- 
ing in an aimless gallop his mingled wrath 
and terror. 1 Says one of the old chron- 
iclers, portraying the same conspicuous 
figure on another but similar occasion, 
"His whole body was so contorted with 
fury as to be scarcely recognizable; a 
scowl of rage furrowed his brow, his eyes 
flashed fire, and his color changed to a 
livid white." 2 

Such, on that historic day, was John 
Lackland, King of England. The seven 
ships which he watched till they came to 
anchor at Stonar, 3 a few miles distant from 
his point of view, were the vanguard of a 
mighty fleet. On the evening of the twen- 
tieth of May, eight hundred vessels had set 
sail from Calais, bearing a vast host of the 
nobility and chivalry of France, with their 
retainers, to conquer England, punish its 
wicked monarch, and place upon the throne 
Louis, the heir of the King of France. 
Travelling backward over a period of nearly 
two hundred years, the student of history 
finds a parallel to this invasion. On the 
twenty-eighth of September, 1066, William 

1 Norgate's Life of John, pp. 268, 269. Hist, des 
Dues, p. 169. Vie de Louis VIII., p. 100. 

2 Norgate (quoting R. Devizes), p. 32. 

8 Norgate, p. 268. Petit-Dutaillis, p. 100. Wen- 
dover, vol. 2, p. 364. 



the Norman had set foot on English soil. 1 
Contrasting the two military enterprises, 
that of Louis gave by far the greater 
promise of success. William had scant 
grounds for counting upon support from 
the people whose crown he coveted, 2 
while Louis entered England only by the 
urgent solicitation of the great lords and 
powerful barons of the realm. The Nor- 
man nobles hesitated long before commit- 
ting themselves to the hazardous venture 
of their war-lord, and only fear of his ter- 
rible vengeance overcame their reluctance 
at the last. 3 But Louis was the idol of 
the French, and his summons to rally to 
his banner was answered with universal 
enthusiasm. The great military chief 
whose daring and strategy gained the vic- 
tory of Senlac, and left his rival Harold 
dead upon the field, was after all the 
grandson of a tanner. His birth record 
was smirched with shame, and when he 
had besieged Alencon, the mocking citi- 
zens had hung out upon the walls hides 
bearing the legend, "Work for the Tan- 
ner. " 4 In strong contrast is the fact that 
Louis was the eldest son and heir apparent 
of the monarch whose political craft and 
warlike prowess had revived in France the 

1 Green, Hist. Eng. People, vol. I, p. ioo. 

2 Ibid., p. gg. 

3 Green, Hist. Eng. People, vol. i, p. gg. 

4 Ibid., vol. i, pp. g5, g6. 

io 



memories of Charlemagne. l But that which 
gives to the enterprise of Louis a peculiar 
conspicuity is, that it was a reversal of the 
current of history. The tide of conquest 
had rolled the other way. William Rufus, 
Henry First, Henry Second, and Richard 
of the Lion Heart, 2 had each in turn led 
his armies across the channel, and harried 
the realm of France. But not since Wil- 
liam the Conqueror landed at Pevensey 
and fought at Hastings had a great French 
armament whitened with its canvas the 
separating sea, and borne a mighty host to 
invade the territory of an English king. 
When all the precedents of two centuries 
are thus turned upside down, so excep- 
tional a fact demands explanation as im- 
peratively as would the reversal of the 
current of some great river, or the back- 
ward movement of a planet in its orbit. 

Such explanation, amply adequate, is 
found in the life and character of John 
Lackland. No contemporary chroniclers 
have given us what may be called a biog- 
raphy of King John. But they have 
reproduced certain isolated events in his 
stormy life with all the vividness of instan- 
taneous photography. This paper is de- 
signed merely to provide the screen upon 
which the light of historic study may throw 

1 Petit-Dutaillis, p. 3. 

3 Green, vol. 1, pp. 114, 115. Wendover, vol. 2, 
PP- 31. J 35» 136. 

11 



these scenes, and to make them pass like 
moving pictures in rapid succession be- 
fore the mental vision. As we catch these 
glimpses of the man from his early youth 
until the hour when his dishonored body 
lay stark in death, we shall behold such a 
revelation of moral obliquity that we shall 
cease to wonder that the English people, 
driven to desperation, turned to a foreign 
prince for deliverance from a tyranny so 
intolerable. 

No one of the ancient chateaux of 
Touraine has a profounder fascination for 
the lover of history than the Castle of 
Chinon. The memories of kings and 
queens cling like the ivy to its moulder- 
ing walls. Its desolate apartments seem 
haunted by the ghosts of famous men and 
fair women, who schemed and plotted, loved 
and hated, fought and danced, in those 
now lonely halls. It was the fourth day 
of July in the year 1189 that an aged 
man, sick unto death, lay propped by 
cushions in one of the smaller chambers of 
Chinon, and fastened his eager eyes upon 
a parchment scroll which his sole attendant 
was about to read. Henry Plantagenet, 
King of England, second of the name, had 
reached the last stage of a hitherto brilliant 
career. The morning of that fateful July 
day had seen him bend his proud knee 
to his great rival, Philippe Augustus of 

12 



France; and surrender himself in abject 
humiliation to whatever conditions the con- 
queror might demand. 1 But — bitterest 
ingredient in his cup of gall — Henry had 
thrown down his arms in the full knowl- 
edge that the French king could not have 
humbled the sovereign of England, if 
Henry's own son Richard had not allied 
himself to Philippe in parricidal conspir- 
acy. 2 Through all the wretched rebellion 
of his children, one spark of consolation 
had been nurtured by Henry, till now, in 
the awful chill of his dying hour, it warmed 
his very soul. Whatever his other sons 
had been, his youngest, his favorite, John, 
could not be seduced from filial devotion. 
Henry's passionate attachment to his latest 
born had made the young prince, while yet 
a boy, lord of Ireland, with the royal 
pledge that he should be crowned king of 
that island. 3 One chronicler asserts that 
Henry had declared a purpose to put John 
in possession of the vast Angevin empire 
which Henry ruled, save only Normandy 
and England. Bound by such ties of 
gratitude, one son of the crushed and 
dying monarch could be trusted even in 
the hour of his father's disastrous defeat 
and shame. That night at Chinon there 

1 Ramsay's Angevin Empire, p. 244. Wendover, 
vol. 2, p. 76. 

2 Hist, des Dues, p. 84. 

3 Ramsay, pp. 228, 232. 

13 



had been placed in the hands of the chan- 
cellor a list of the great nobles and princes 
of the blood, whose treachery had contrib- 
uted to the triumph of France. 

"Read the names," said the king to 
his companion. The chancellor hesitated. 
The king repeated his command. ' ' Sire, ■ ' 
stammered the chancellor, with tears in 
his voice, "the first name upon the list is 
that of your son, the lord John." Henry 
turned on his couch with a groan. ' ' Now, ' ' 
said he, "let all things go as they will. I 
care no more for myself, nor for anything 
in the world." His heart was broken, 
and his death-blow struck. 1 

The panoramic canvas moves, and an- 
other glimpse is given us, revealing this 
scion of the Plantagenet line farther on 
in his career. Richard has become King 
of England, and of all the splendid heri- 
tage on the continent which Norman Wil- 
liam bequeathed to his successors. Fren- 
zied with the chivalrous enthusiasm of the 
age, and possibly dreaming that he might 
atone by deeds of heroism in the cause of 
the Church for the crimes of his earlier 
years, the king with the lion's heart had 
gathered a huge armament, and gone 
across the seas to recover the Holy Sepul- 
chre from the infidel Saracen. But not 
until he had lavished upon his brother John 

1 Ramsay, p. 244. Wendover, vol. 2, p. 76. 
14 



stately castles and broad manors from 
Cornwall to the Scottish border. Nor 
were the flood-gates of the royal bounty 
shut down before six great and wealthy 
earldoms — Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, 
Dorset, Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall — 
with all their enormous revenues, had 
been laid at the feet of John. 1 

The story is familiar which relates how 
Richard, returning from Syria, was impris- 
oned by Henry Sixth, Emperor of Ger- 
many. Immured in the Castle of Speyer, 
where the Rhine receives the tribute of the 
Speyerbach, the fiery king of England had 
been for eighteen months like an eagle 
beating against the bars of its cage. The 
2d of February, 1194, may have been 
wintry in the valley of the Rhine. But to 
King Richard it brought the warmth and 
cheer of hope. On that day the emperor 
led forth his captive, and with a splendid 
cavalcade of the princes of the Empire, and 
bishops and archbishops of the Church, 
escorted Richard to Mainz, 2 there to meet 
the envoys of his brother John. Aware 
that almost superhuman efforts had been 
made by his subjects to gather a ransom 
for the monarch whom they idolized, 3 the 
king must have felt that these representa- 

1 Norgate, p. 27. Ramsay, p. 275. 
» Walter of Coventry, p. 48. 
3 Roger of Wendover, vol. 2, pp. 128, 129. Ram- 
say, p. 333- 

15 



tives of England, coming direct from John, 
could be none other than the bearers of the 
price of Richard's liberty. But when the 
public conference had closed, the emperor 
showed his prisoner a private letter bear- 
ing his brother's sign-manual. It did in- 
deed proffer a great sum of money ; but 
not to ransom the king from his captivity. 
It contained a pledge that if the emperor 
would hold his prisoner for another year, 
until John should be firmly seated on the 
English throne, this loving and grateful 
brother would pay thirty thousand marks 
for the service thus rendered ! ' 

Four years pass by. A cross-bow bolt 
has ended the strange, romantic, and half- 
savage career of Richard. His body is lying, 
by his own direction, at Fontevraud, buried 
at the feet of the father whose gray hairs 
he had brought down in sorrow to the grave. 
The heart, which tradition says was of 
larger mould than those of other men, rests 
in a casket of gold under the high altar of 
the cathedral of Rouen. John has reached 
the goal of his long-cherished ambition. 
As a wolf which at last has run down some 
noble stag, and feasts his eyes upon his 
prey before he rends it, so does John 
Lackland gloat over England, Ireland, and 
nearly half of France, prostrate at his feet. 
Yet like the favorite of the Persian Xerxes, 

1 Walter of Coventry, pp. 46, 48. Ramsay, p. 333. 
16 



who cried, "All this availeth me nothing, 
so long as Mordecai the Jew sitteth at the 
king's gate," John realizes that in his cup 
of success one bitter ingredient is mingled. 
His brother Geoffrey had left a son — 
Arthur by name — who had inherited the 
lordship of Brittany. Though Arthur was 
but a lad at John's accession, the crafty 
Philippe of France had recognized the pos- 
sibilities of the boy's future. At sixteen 
years of age the young Duke of Brittany 
became the husband of Philippe's daughter 
Jeanne, and received at the hand of his 
father-in-law the order of knighthood, with 
the investiture of Anjou, Maine. Touraine, 
and Poitou. 1 

Well did the new king of England know 
that the law of primogeniture branded him 
as a usurper, and made Arthur, as Geof- 
frey's only surviving son, the true heir of 
the English throne. Like hot coals in his 
bosom was the recollection that when 
Richard set out for Palestine, he had des- 
ignated Arthur as his successor. 2 It does 
not affect the moral quality of the tragedy 
which followed, that the young prince, 
conscious of the righteousness of his cause, 
allowed the hot blood of his Angevin 
ancestry to show itself in defiance of his 

1 Ramsay, pp. 393, 394. Petit-Dutaillis, p. 5. 
Norgate, p. 61. 

2 Wendover, vol. 2, p. 95. Matt, of Westminster, 
vol. 2, p. 81. Norgate, p. 308. 

17 



uncle. 1 Captured at the storming of the 
fortress of Mirabeau on the Vienne, Arthur 
was imprisoned in the Castle of Falaise. 
Thence, in order that he might be more 
immediately under the surveillance of John, 
he was transferred to Rouen, where the 
king was then holding court. 2 

From the hour that the drawbridge of 
the Castle of Rouen was trod by the young 
duke's entering feet, and the portcullis fell 
behind him, Arthur, Duke of Brittany, 
Count of Maine, Anjou, Touraine, and 
Poitou, legitimate heir to the crown of 
England, and son-in-law of one of the 
greatest of the long line of the kings of 
France, vanished from the knowledge of 
men as completely as if the earth had 
yawned and swallowed him up. That his 
royal uncle murdered him with his own 
hand was universally believed on both 
sides of the British Channel. Though 
John was publicly charged with the crime 
again and again, neither he nor his partisans 
ever contradicted the terrible accusation. 3 
Even contemporary writers vary in their 
stories as to the method of the assassination. 
That which historians count as having the 
most probability is sufficiently blood-cur- 
dling. Under cover of the night a boat was 

1 Wendover, vol. 2, p. 205. Norgate, p. 91. 

2 Wendover, vol. 2, p. 205. Ramsay, p. 396. 

3 Ramsay, p. 396. Petit-Dutaillis, p. 77. Roger 
of Wendover, vol. 2, p. 206. 

18 



rowed at high tide to the water-gate of the 
Castle, and moored to its stone stairs. The 
warden was summoned, a few whispered 
words were exchanged, and Arthur was 
brought from his cell. In an instant John's 
poniard was plunged in his nephew's heart. 
A cry ! A splash ! Then the waters of 
the Seine closed over the only rival that 
John's jealous soul could fear. 1 

Five years have passed since Arthur's 
blood stained the dagger of his royal uncle. 
It is Easter Sunday, the thirtieth of March, 
1208. The sun shines, the hedge-rows 
put on their spring greenery, here and 
there the early flowers unfold their blos- 
soms, the cattle dot the hillsides, from the 
pastures comes the bleating of the flocks, 
and little children are playing on the vil- 
lage green. But from where the Cornish 
coast thrusts itself out into the Atlantic, 
northward to the Northumbrian hills, no 
church bell sends out its Easter sum- 
mons. Over cathedral and minster and 
village Church alike broods a deathlike 
silence. No skilful fingers press the organ 
keys, the chaunting choirs are stricken 
dumb, and the awful stillness itself be- 
comes a pitiful "Deus Misereatur" 

For King John had at last defied the 
only power before which tyrants in that 

1 Ramsay, p. 397. (Vide Ramsay's quotation 
from Le Breton, same p., foot-note.) 

19 



age were forced to bow, and over the land 
Pope Innocent the Third had flung the 
black shadow of an interdict. From one 
end of England to the other, no public 
prayer was offered, no sacrament cele- 
brated, no message preached from pulpit 
or wayside cross. The dying stretched 
our their hands in vain pleading for priestly 
offices, and the dead, barred out from 
consecrated churchyards, were buried as 
unblessed by religious rites as if men cov- 
ered from sight the carcases of beasts. 1 
Three bishops — they of London, Ely, and 
Worcester — had pronounced the sentence 
of the Pope on Palm Sunday, and then 
"fled from the wrath to come." 2 None 
too early did they make their escape. In 
uncontrollable fury John swore his favorite 
oath, "by the teeth of God, " that he would 
tear out the eyes and split the nose of any 
priest who dared to proclaim the papal 
edict.* Every bishop in the realm, save 
two abject pensioners of the king, followed 
the three chief offenders into exile. 4 Every 
priest was banished. The monks were 
driven from their convents. Abbeys, pri- 
ories, and bishoprics were put in charge of 
laymen, and the entire revenue of the 

1 Roger of Wendover, vol. 2, p. 246. 

2 Wendover, vol 2, p. 246. Norgate, p. 127. 
Ramsay, p. 415. 

3 Wendover, vol. 2, pp. 245, 246. 

4 Norgate, p. 130. 

20 



ecclesiastical establishments was confis- 
cated to the crown. 1 When a bandit who 
had robbed and then murdered a priest 
was brought before John as his judge, 
"Let him go," was the monarch's decree, 
"he has killed one of my enemies." 2 But 
the flames of John's wrath swept beyond 
the bounds of the Church. In the mad- 
ness of his fury all men became his ene- 
mies. He desolated the agricultural dis- 
tricts, tearing away hedges and filling the 
ditches which protected tilled fields, "so 
that," says one of the old chroniclers, 
"while men starved, the beasts of the 
chase should fatten on the growing crops. ' ' 3 
The unknown writer of "The Dukes of 
Normandy and Kings of England" tells 
us that the wild creatures "roamed as 
freely through the fields and along the 
highways as if they had been sheep, and 
did not fly at the approach of men. ' ' 4 

Dark suspicion of the nobility brooded 
in the mind of the king. He forced the 
great families of the realm to place their 
sons in his ward as hostages for the loyalty 
of the distinguished houses that they rep- 
resented. 5 William de Braose was the 
lord of vast estates in England, Wales, and 

1 Wendover, vol. 2, pp. 246, 247. 

2 Wendover, vol. 2, p. 247. Ramsay, p. 416. 

3 Norgate, p. 131. 

4 Hist, des Dues, p. 109. 

6 Wendover, vol. 2, pp. 247, 248. 

21 



Ireland. 1 One day in the year 1208 there 
appeared at one of the many castles of de 
Braose a detachment of John's foreign 
mercenaries demanding that the eldest son 
of the family should be delivered up to the 
guardianship of the king. As the royal 
messengers delivered the mandate of their 
master, the Lady Maud, the wife of de 
Braose, could not restrain her indignation. 
"1 will not," she cried, "give up my son 
to your lord, King John. His hands are 
yet red with the blood of his own nephew 
Arthur." 2 Terrified at her own daring 
words, she fled to Ireland, only to be ulti- 
mately captured with her son, loaded with 
chains, carried back to England, and im- 
mured in the dungeons of Windsor Castle. 
There, by John's command, the mother 
and son were starved to death. 3 The con- 
temporary chronicler describes with grew- 
some detail the horrible appearance of the 
corpses, when, after eleven days of agony, 
the dungeon doors were opened. 4 De 
Braose himself wandered from one hiding- 
place to another, but within a year died of 
a broken heart. 5 

Such were the horrors which roused 
the barons of England to a sense of their 

1 Ramsay, p. 416. Hist, des Dues, p. III. 

2 Wendover, vol. 2, p. 248. Norgate, p. 150. 

3 Wendover, vol. 2, p. 255. Norgate, pp. 1 56, 288. 

4 Hist, des Dues, pp. 114, 115. 

6 Wendover, vol. 2, p. 256. Hist, des Dues, p. 
115. 

22 



shameful degradation. But the first effect- 
ive blow dealt to the maddened despot 
was to come from another source. The 
Pope added to the miseries of the interdict 
the personal excommunication of the king. 
Every subject was absolved from alle- 
giance, and John and all his posterity were 
pronounced incapable of exercising any 
regal function. 1 To Philippe of France 
was offered the throne of England by the 
loftier sovereignty of the Pope, on condition 
that the French King should at once lead 
a crusade against the rebellious monarch. 
Sudden as a lightning-flash was John's 
recoil from the black gulf yawning at his 
feet. On the 22d of May, 1213, he flung 
himself prostrate before Pandulf, the legate 
of the Pope, confessing himself to be the 
chief of sinners against God and His 
holy Church. To earn absolution he sur- 
rendered England and Ireland to the Pope. 
Henceforth he would hold his ancestral 
realms only as the Holy Father's tenant, 
paying to the See of Rome a yearly rental 
of a thousand marks. 3 He would prove 
his sincerity by a humble invitation to the 
banished bishops to return to their sees, 
the priests to their cures, and the monks 
to their convents. Nor did his humilia- 

1 Norgate, p. 161. Roger of Wendover, vol. 2, 
p. 250. 

2 Norgate, p. 161. Wendover, vol. 2, p. 259. 

3 Roger of Wendover, vol. 2, pp. 268, 269. 



tion stop short of a vow to restore in full 
the wealth of which he had robbed the 
Church. 1 Curious is the commentary on 
this profound conviction of sin afforded by 
a story which, alone of the old chroniclers, 
Matthew Paris relates. True or false, it 
is an index of the contemporary opinion of 
King John. The monk tells us that the 
King, repenting of his humiliating agree- 
ment before the year was out, sent a depu- 
tation to the great Emir of Morocco, then 
holding sway over North Africa and part 
of Spain, offering, on condition of the 
Moor's military aid, to make over to him 
the realm of England, to abandon the 
Christian religion which he had ceased to 
believe, and to yield an implicit obedience 
to the laws of Mahomet. 2 

John's reconciliation to Rome was the 
cunning of the trapped wild beast. Across 
the Channel Philippe Augustus, with his 
huge army and splendid fleet, balked of 
his prey, gnashed his teeth in impotent 
fury. Henceforth John and his barons 
found their old positions reversed. The 
nobles of England had become the rebels 
against the Pope, and the awful spiritual 
power of interdict and excommunication 
was to reinforce the tyrant in his struggles 

1 Wendover, vol. 2, pp. 265-270. Norgate, pp. 
180, 190. 

2 Wendover, vol. 2, p. 283. (Note from Matt. 
Paris.) Norgate, p. 182, note. 

24 



to enslave the people. All the world 
knows the story of the revolt of the barons, 
resulting in wresting from the unwilling 
not terrified John, the Great Charter of 
English liberty. But there were conse- 
quences flowing from that check upon the 
tyrant, which all the world does not know, 
because the historians have been almost 
silent regarding the details. England had 
not long to wait for proofs of the Pope's 
resolve to buttress with all his mysterious 
power the tottering authority of John. 1 
Innocent hurled a new excommunication, 
aimed, not, as six years before, against the 
monster on the throne of the Plantagenets, 
but against those who dared to defend the 
Magna Charta when assailed by this pious 
son of the Church. 2 Then burst out the 
conflagration of civil war. John's mer- 
cenaries, gathered from the dregs of his 
continental domains, 3 swept through the 
unhappy island with fire and sword. The 
track of these hired banditti was like that 
of the locusts of the Orient. " Before 
them the land was as the garden of Eden, 
and behind them a desolate wilderness. ' ' 4 
Even before the Great Charter had been 

1 Wendover, vol. 2, p. 326. Walter of Coventry, 
vol. 2, p. 222. 

2 Norgate, p. 246. Wendover, vol. 2, pp. 329, 
330. Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 355, 357. 

3 Walter of Coventry, vol. 2, p. 224. 

* Wendover, vol. 2, pp. 356, 357. Norgate, pp. 
248-252. 

25 



extorted from him, the horrible cruelties 
of John had lost for him the capital of 
Britain. While the king was storming the 
castles of the great, burning the cottages 
of the peasantry, and putting women and 
children to torture or the sword, the 
citizens of London opened its gates to the 
armies of the barons, and from that hour 
the ancient city never knew again the pol- 
lution of the presence of King John. 1 

At last retribution, which even his great 
ally at Rome could neither prohibit nor 
postpone, was on the track of the wicked- 
est monarch that ever wore the English 
crown. It could not have been far from 
the last day of October, 12 15, that a dis- 
tinguished English embassy appeared at 
the court of Philippe Augustus. Headed 
by the Earls of Winchester and Hereford, 
these representatives of the barons, in the 
most solemn and definite language, offered 
the crown of England to Louis, the eldest 
son of the King of France, and swore 
upon the Gospels that they would never 
again accept the sovereignty of John. Q In 
the midst of this impressive scene a star- 
tling incident had well-nigh put an end to 
further negotiations. A letter was placed 
in Philippe's hands, over which he glanced 
with visible agitation. Then bursting 

1 Walter of Coventry, vol. 2, p. 220. Wendover, 
vol. 2, p. 307. Ramsay, p. 473. 

2 Petit-Dutaillis, p. 70. Wendover, vol. 2, p. 358. 

26 



through all the restraints of diplomatic 
courtesy, he hurled at Saher de Quinci, 
Earl of Winchester, the accusation of 
treachery. For the letter bore the signa- 
tures and seals of the great nobles of Eng- 
land, and announced that King John having 
come to terms with the barons, Louis need 
put himself to no further trouble or peril 
on behalf of his English allies. 1 It was a 
terrible moment for the two great Earls 
and their associates. But the cloud was 
dispelled as quickly as it had risen. The 
Earl of Winchester asked the royal per- 
mission to examine the letter, and demon- 
strated, even to the satisfaction of King 
Philippe, that both signatures and seals 
were clumsy forgeries, by which John had 
tried to postpone the day of retribution. 
Sir Walter Scott has been severely criti- 
cised for making a brave knight commit a 
crime more congruous with a commercial 
than a chivalrous age. But John Lack- 
land, belted knight and royal head of Eng- 
land's chivalry, had wrought that very 
crime three hundred years before the days 
of Marmion. 2 

Before that momentous conference closed, 
Louis of France had become King of Eng- 
land, so far as such dignity was in the 
power of the barons to bestow, and Phi- 



1 Petit-Dutaillis, p. 71. 

2 Ibid., p. 71. 



27 



lippe Augustus had entered into definite 
agreement to send his son across the Chan- 
nel with a force which should make his 
claim irresistible. 1 Between the promise 
and its fulfilment a wide gap was to inter- 
vene, and obstacles anticipated by neither 
of the parties to the contract were to be 
surmounted. Louis was a man of sincere 
religious character. His pure life, in happy 
contrast to that of his father and other 
monarchs of his time, 2 may not have been 
wholly the fruit of the religious influence 
of the Church. But it cannot be supposed 
that such a man was superior to the terror 
which in the thirteenth century the wrath 
of the Pope inspired. For no sooner did 
the news of the compact with the English 
barons reach Rome, than Innocent the 
Third denounced the proposed invasion, 
and threatened with excommunication any 
who should dare to lift a finger against 
that loyal son of the Church, King John 
of England. Crafty and time-serving, 
Philippe Augustus drew back. He dared 
not brave the thunders of the papal indig- 
nation. While secretly hoping for his 
son's success, Philippe endeavored to de- 
ceive the Pope with the idea that the 
enterprise of Louis met with his father's 
disapproval. 3 On the twenty-fourth day of 

1 Petit-Dutaillis, p. 71. Hist, des Dues, p. 160. 

2 Petit-Dutaillis, p. 14. 

3 Petit-Dutaillis, p. 95. 

28 



April, 12 1 6, a great Council was convoked 
by the King of France, where Cardinal 
Gualo, the papal legate, again fulminated 
the prohibition of his master. With a show 
of judicial fairness, Philippe Augustus ad- 
dressed the assembly, professing his loyalty 
to the see of Rome, but demanding that 
Louis's reasons for the step he proposed 
should be heard. 1 Out of the throng ap- 
peared a knight whom Louis had chosen 
as his advocate. 2 In eloquent terms he 
set forth the iniquities with which John 
Lackland had shocked the moral sense of 
Christendom. His treachery to his brother 
Richard, his murder of his nephew Arthur, 
his surrender of his kingdom to the Pope 
as if it were a commodity to be bought and 
sold, his trampling beneath his feet the 
rights of the barons and the people guar- 
anteed by the Magna Charta, and above 
all the desolation of his own country, the 
torturing of his own subjects, and the inno- 
cent blood with which he had crimsoned 
the very soil of England, formed some of 
the counts in that terrible indictment. 
Had the pleader for the condemnation of 
the English king paused here, his argu- 
ment would have been well-nigh irresisti- 
ble. But when he proceeded to urge that 
because Louis had married Blanche of Cas- 

1 Wendover, vol. 2, p. 362. Petit-Dutaillis, p. 94. 

2 Wendover, vol. 2, p. 362. Petit-Dutaillis, p. 94. 

29 



tile, a niece of John, therefore the young 
prince was the legitimate heir of the throne 
of England, 1 the weakness of this link in 
the chain of his logic vitiated his entire 
argument. Gualo, the legate, fought 
fiercely and with the eloquence of sin- 
cerity the pretensions of Louis. Once 
more he threatened the most terrible ar- 
rows in the quiver of the Church, to be 
launched against the assailant of the saintly 
monarch of England, who had pledged him- 
self to a crusade for the recovery of the 
Holy Sepulchre. 2 It was impossible that 
such disputants should find any common 
ground, and without attaining any defi- 
nite results the council was dissolved. 
Louis and his friends hastened to make 
their final preparations, and Gualo, in a 
paroxysm of rage, resolved to dog the 
steps of the prince, follow him across the 
Channel, and thwart his plans on English 
soil. 

Meantime, John had learned of his ene- 
my's preparations, and formed a bold but 
skilful plan to frustrate them. The ton- 
nage of the English ships gave him a vast 
advantage. One of John's great vessels, 
according to the chroniclers of the time, 
was worth four of those in the service of 
Louis. 3 With such superiority on the sea, 

1 Wendover, vol. 2, p. 363. Petit-Dutaillis, p. 84. 

2 Petit-Dutaillis, p. 73. Wendover, vol. 2, p. 363. 

3 Hist, des Dues, p. 167. 

30 



John resolved not to wait till actual invasion 
should occur, but to make a sudden dash 
across the Channel, and blockade and burn 
the French fleet in the harbor of Calais. 1 
But the stars in their courses fought 
against him. The fearful tempest of 
the 20th of May had scattered the naval 
force of England from one end of the 
Channel to the other. With no opposition 
save that of the heavy seas, Louis had 
embarked. As we have already seen, only 
seven of his nearly eight hundred vessels 2 
braved that memorable storm, and bearing 
the prospective conqueror of England, 
came to anchor in the narrow waterway 
which then parted the Isle of Thanet from 
the mainland. 3 Stonar, at which Louis 
made his landing, for three hundred years 
after the Norman conquest was a seaport 
of importance. But the silting of the 
Channel, and a terrible inundation which 
overwhelmed it in 1385, have blotted out 
from the modern maps of England this 
ancient and historic town. 4 The thirteenth 
century was a superstitious age, and Louis 
must have been strangely unlike most 
mediaeval characters, if an incident attend- 
ing his landing did not waken some dread 

1 Petit-Dutaillis, p. 100. Norgate, p. 267. 

2 Hist, de la Marine Francaise, p. 309. Hist, des 
Dues, p. 167. 

3 Hist, de la Marine Francaise, p. 309. 

4 Thanet and the Cinque Ports, vol. I, pp. 119-121. 

31 



forebodings in his soul. Eager to be the 
first to set foot on the coveted island, and 
seeing a priest bearing a crucifix, who had 
come to the water's edge to welcome the 
invader, Louis leaped from his boat, but 
only to plunge neck-deep in the water. 
Apparently the prince discerned no omen 
of ill in his unpremeditated bath, and wad- 
ing ashore, he seized the crucifix, and 
having devoutly kissed it, he planted his 
lance deep in English soil. 1 

John's hesitation in striking a decisive 
blow when he first saw the seven tiny 
French ships making for the coast at 
Stonar, was fatal to his cause. For, when 
on the "day following more than seven hun- 
dred vessels which had been storm-bound 
at Calais rejoined the prince, and disem- 
barked a great French army on the Isle 
of Thanet, John's opportunity was forever 
lost. In his distrust of his hirelings — 
most of whom were French — he had slunk 
away from the sight he had seen off the 
shore at Sandwich, and taken flight to 
Dover. 2 Thence he hurried to Winchester, 
there to meet Gualo, and in Winchester 
Cathedral, the ancient burial-place of 
John's ancestors, the legate thundered 
forth a general excommunication against 
Louis, his French comrades, and the 

1 Petit-Dutaillis, p. ioo. 

2 Hist, des Dues, pp. 169, 170. Petit-Dutaillis, p. 
100. 

32 



rebellious barons of England. 1 Meanwhile 
Louis had seized upon Sandwich, 2 and 
captured the greater part of John's fleet, 
together with a vast quantity of provisions 
and military stores. 3 Philippe Augustus is 
said to have declared, after his son's invasion 
had ended, that Louis had shown himself no 
strategist when he pushed into the heart of 
England, and left behind him Dover, "the 
key to the country, ' ' in the hands of King- 
John. 4 But knowing as he did that the 
barons were eager to receive him in their 
stronghold in London, the prince shrank 
from the long delay that the reduction of 
Dover Castle would involve. Canterbury 
opened its gates to the invader, and 
Rochester was taken with but slight resist- 
ance. Here a force of French knights 
and men at arms, whom he had sent over 
the Channel some months before his own 
fleet had set sail, came out from London 
to bid their lord a welcome to the land. 5 
But far more significant was the fact that 
with these compatriots of his own was a 
great crowd of the most famous English 
nobility, men whose ancestral names had 
been interwoven with Anglo-Norman his- 
tory from the days of William the Con- 

1 Hist, des Dues, p. 170. 

2 Thanet and the Cinque Ports, vol. 2, p. 24. 

3 Hist, des Dues, p. 170. Petit-Dutaillis, p. 101. 

4 Norgate, p. 275. Petit-Dutaillis, p. 108, foot- 
note. 

6 Hist, des Dues, p. 171. Norgate, p. 270. 

33 



queror. 1 The Earls of Hertford, of Essex, 
of Oxford, of Pembroke, together with a 
host of barons hardly less distinguished, 
came to kiss the hand of Louis, and to 
swear allegiance to him as the rightful 
King of England. 2 One after another the 
castles along his line of march yielded to 
his authority, and on the second day of 
June, only ten days after his landing, he 
entered London in triumph, welcomed with 
wildest enthusiasm by a populace drunk 
with the joy of deliverance from the mon- 
strous despotism of King John. 3 The stay 
of the prince at London was of brief dura- 
tion. Tarrying only long enough to receive 
the homage of the people, and to take a 
solemn oath that he would rule England 
with justice and with scrupulous observance 
of their ancestral customs, 4 Louis hurried 
to Winchester, where John had taken 
refuge, and where Gualo was gnashing his 
teeth and thundering his curses. At the 
invader's approach both his royal and 
ecclesiastical foes took to flight. Win- 
chester, with its two great castles, surren- 
dered, but not until half the city had been 
swept away by a conflagration, which some 
of the chroniclers assert was kindled by 

1 Hist, des Dues, p. 171. Petit-Dutaillis, pp. 101, 
102. 

2 Hist, des Dues, p. 171. 

3 Hist, des Dues, p. 171. Petit-Dutaillis, p. 102. 

4 Petit-Dutaillis, p. 102. 

34 



the orders of King John. 1 Then Louis 
awoke to the consciousness that he had 
committed a strategical blunder in having 
left such a fortress and seaport as Dover in 
the hands of the royalists. That town and 
castle were defended by the famous Hubert 
De Burgh, a knight whose magnificent 
qualities as a soldier were only surpassed 
by his fidelity to a bad master. For fifteen 
weeks was the fortress bombarded with 
huge stones hurled by the French mago- 
nels. 2 The siege failed, but to Louis came 
compensation grateful to his wounded 
pride. While his attack upon Dover was 
at its height, Alexander, King of Scotland, 
made his way through England with an 
army at his back, and offered alliance and 
homage to the invader. 3 

It would be tedious to relate the details 
of this wonderful yet almost unknown 
conquest of England. It suffices to say, 
that from the time of Louis's landing on 
the 2 1 st of May, to the close of the month 
of July, only two months and ten days 
had elapsed. But in that brief space the 
French prince and his English allies had 
brought into subjection all England, from 
the Channel to the Scottish border, with 
some important "missing links" in the 

1 Norgate, p. 271. Petit-Dutaillis, p. 106. 

2 Wendover, vol, 2, p. 374. Petit-Dutaillis, pp. 
108, 109. 

3 Wendover, vol. 2, p. 376. 

35 



chain of conquest. 1 John still held several 
of the southwestern shires, although it is 
uncertain from the chronicles of the time 
whether the great peninsula of Devon and 
Cornwall may be counted as his or his 
rival's, and over some of the strongest 
castles here and there throughout the 
realm the royal standard still floated. 
But the great earldoms of the southeast 
were in Louis's possession. All the north 
to the very bounds of Scotland had ac- 
cepted him as the sovereign of England. 
Even the wild tribes of Wales, among 
whom it never had been forgotten that 
John starved to death the wife and son of 
William de Braose, threw themselves into 
the invader's arms. 2 Far more important 
in its moral effect must have been the fact 
that at London, where from Anglo-Saxon 
days had been the capital of England, this 
foreign prince fixed his throne and ruled 
with authority which none disputed. 
When it is recalled that for the greater 
part of a year Louis held sovereign sway 
over the major part of England, it does 
not seem historically inaccurate to style 
this dominance "The Second Norman 
Conquest of England. ' ' 

The venturesome craft which had Louis 
at its helm, for half a year made pros- 

1 Petit-Dutaillis, pp. H2, 113. Norgate, p. 274. 

2 Petit-Dutaillis, pp. 112, 113. 



perous voyaging. But now through more 
than one gaping seam disaster found its 
way. Some of the great lords who had 
followed Louis from France, discouraged 
by the failure to capture Dover, and prob- 
ably terrified by the spiritual weapons of 
Gualo, deserted with all their following, 
and weakened irreparably the army of in- 
vasion. 1 In his well-meant efforts to re- 
tain the remainder of his French forces, 
Louis began to show a natural favoritism 
toward the nobles of his own race. As 
might have been expected, the English 
barons grew moody and jealous as they saw 
high offices and rich domains bestowed 
upon foreign adventurers. 2 

It may have been in the summer or 
autumn of the year 1216 that the Vi- 
compte de Melun, one of the bravest of 
the nobles of King Philippe's court, was 
seized at London with a mortal malady. 
Conscious that his end was near, he sum- 
moned some of the English barons to his 
bedside, and made to them a startling con- 
fession. In effect it was that Louis and 
sixteen of his lords — among whom was 
the Vicompte de Melun himself — had 
entered into an oath-bound agreement that 
as soon as the French Prince should 
be crowned King of England, all the Eng- 

1 Hist, des Dues, pp. 177, 178. 

2 Petit-Dutaillis, p. 119. 

37 



lish nobles who had solicited and welcomed 
the invasion should be sent into perpetual 
banishment, on the strange charge that 
they were traitors to their liege lord! 
Scarcely had this terrible revelation es- 
caped his lips, when the vicompte breathed 
his last. 1 Although nearly all the chroni- 
clers concur in the telling of this story, it 
bears suspicious marks of being a fiction, 
contrived by John or his partisans. 2 But, 
true or false, its effect was irresistible. 
Henceforth, a suspicion which nothing 
could allay, filled with brooding solicitude 
the minds of the English barons. 3 Mean- 
while, Louis had sworn that he would 
never cease to batter the walls of Dover 
till that stronghold acknowledged him as 
King of England. 4 John recognized his 
opportunity. While the greater part of 
the French army and its English allies were 
pounding at the battlements of Dover, the 
King of England burst forth from his hid- 
ing-place, and, like a tiger escaped from 
its cage, began to rend and devour. His 
course was northward along the eastern 
border of the island. The story of that 
savage raid lingered for centuries among 
the people of Suffolk, Norfolk, and Lin- 

1 Wendover, vol. 2, p. 377. Matt. Paris, vol. 2, 
p. 287. 

2 Petit-Dutaillis, p. 118. 

3 Wendover, vol. 2, p. 377. 

4 Wendover, vol. 2 t p. 375. 

38 



colnshire. One hundred and sixty-five 
years after John was laid in his unhonored 
grave, Wat Tyler and his rebels — many 
of whom were from the eastern counties 
— compelled Richard the Second to swear 
that no prince of the name of John should 
ever sit upon the English throne — an 
oath which yet remains inviolate. 1 In the 
path of the raging king broad earldoms 
were swept with fire and sword. Peasants 
dared no longer cultivate the soil. Fairs 
and markets ceased to be held. Every- 
thing of value was buried in the earth. 
Men furtively bought and sold in the 
graveyards under the illusion that such a 
place had a sacredness that even John 
might respect. 2 The churches and abbeys 
were profaned. At Crowland, which from 
Saxon days had been regarded with some- 
thing of the reverence inspired by the Holy 
Sepulchre or the Garden of Gethsemane, 
John ordered the abbey church to be set 
on fire, and stood at a distance to watch 
the blaze. When one of his officers, 
moved by the pleadings of the monks, 
brought to the king a sum of money as a 
ransom for their ripe harvest fields, John's 
fury knew no restraint. Heaping abuse 
on his too tender-hearted lieutenant, the 
raging monarch with his own hands fired 

1 Green'sJHist. Eng. People, vol. I, p. 394. 

2 Petit-Dutaillis, p. 127. 

39 



the wide expanse of waving gold, running 
up and down amidst the smoke and flames, 
till the whole territory of St. Guthlac was 
a blackened desert. 1 The chroniclers re- 
cord that neither women nor little children 
were spared by this pitiless monster. To 
extort money, men were tied to the tails 
of horses ; they were hung by the feet 
or hands ; salt and vinegar were flung into 
their eyes ; they were fastened to a tripod 
over glowing coals, then plunged into icy 
water. ' ' Everywhere, ' ' says the annalist 
of Waverly, " resounded the groans of 
agony and the cries of mourning. ' ' 2 

Parting the counties of Norfolk and Lin- 
coln, to-day as in mediaeval times, a broad 
inlet of the sea bears the name of "The 
Wash." Five rivers find outlet to the 
ocean through this estuary. Its vast area 
of sands, although passable at low tide, 
has been the grave of many a venturous 
traveller. On the 12th of October, 12 16, 3 
a long cavalcade wound its way along the 
southern shores of the Wash. The steel 
armor of mounted knights flashed back the 
rays of the autumn sun. Archers and 
men-at-arms marched in solid phalanx. 
Silken banners fluttered in the breath of 
the sea. But, central amidst that host, 



1 Norgate, p. 278. 

2 Petit-Dutaillis, p. 127. 

3 Norgate, pp. 281, 282. Ramsay, p. 500. 



40 



guarded with jealous care on the front and 
flank and rear, rumbled a train of heavily 
laden wagons. In them was such freight- 
age as no graybeard in all England had 
ever seen before. Money beyond all com- 
putation, wrung by torture from the high 
and the low; jewels which the great 
families had proudly kept as heirlooms, 
and bequeathed from generation to genera- 
tion; costly garments adorned with gold 
and precious stones; and endless stores of 
gold and silver vessels and vestments stiff 
with embroidery, from desecrated and 
plundered churches; — these and other spoils 
of robbery made the wheels of the great 
wains to creak and groan under the pre- 
cious load. 1 

The tide had only partially receded. 
No guide could be found to risk the lead- 
ing of that host over the quicksand of the 
Wash. 2 But the furious temper of the 
chief would brook no delay. Leading the 
column, he pushed rapidly on till he reached 
the sands through which the river Welland 
winds. Suddenly the ground beneath 
their feet seemed to open. Whirlpools 
boiled with a foaming flood, and sucked 
down into their depths men and horses and 
every wagon of the priceless baggage train. 
A great part of the army was engulfed, 

1 Wendover, vol. 2, p. 378. 

2 Ramsay, p. 500. Norgate, p. 282. 

41 



but their lord, with those in immediate 
attendance upon him, reached, as by a 
miracle, the other shore. 1 As John Lack- 
land looked back upon that frightful grave- 
yard, no man on earth constituted a 
stranger picture. He was a king with- 
out a kingdom, a ruler without subjects, a 
leader without followers, and a robber 
whose booty the hand of God had snatched 
away. 2 Maddened by the disaster, the 
king made his way to Swineshead Abbey, 
where he was seized with a raging fever. 
Always the slave of his appetites, he 
gorged himself that night on the good 
monks' peaches and cider. 3 Desperately ill 
next morning, he persisted in pushing north- 
ward, bent on some new scheme of slaugh- 
ter and devastation. No longer able to 
bestride his horse, he was carried for a 
little way upon a rude litter woven by his 
attendants of willow boughs cut with their 

J Wendover, vol. 2, p. 378. Norgate, p. 282. 

2 Since this essay was completed, my friend Pro- 
fessor James Westfall Thompson has kindly point- 
ed out to the writer, an article appearing recently 
in the Journal of the British Numismatic Society, 
by its Honorary Secretary, Mr. W. J. Andrew, upon 
the general subject of " Buried Treasure." It con- 
tains the following significant statement : — 

"There is still a vast army-chest lying but a few 
feet below English soil, compared to which all 
these other discoveries pale into insignificance. 
This is the entire treasure of King John, including 
the ancient regalia of England, the jewels of the 
Normans, and perhaps even the crown of Alfred." 

' Wendover, vol. 1, p. 378. Norgate, p. 282. 

42 



swords. But with shrieks and curses he 
cried out that this wicker vehicle was an 
instrument of torture, and once more they 
lifted him upon his horse. So he came to 
Newark. 1 The traveller in the north of 
England, visiting that ancient city, is still 
shown the ruined castle of the bishop of 
Lincoln, overlooking the waters of the 
Trent. In some chamber of that now 
crumbling edifice, at the hour of midnight 
on the 1 8th of October, 1216, John Lack- 
land closed his career of unexampled 
crime. It was fitting that when such a 
tempestuous soul passed out of the world, 
the elements should be convulsed with a 
furious storm which shook the houses of 
the townsfolk, and howled like an army of 
demons through the turrets of the castle. 2 
As a monk of the bishop's household en- 
tered the death-chamber with the morning 
light, he met the servants of the king 
hurrying away with such of his personal 
effects as had not been buried in the 
quicksands of the Wash. The body was 
found stripped even of the scanty garments 
in which John breathed his last. 3 Matthew 
Paris closes his estimate of this monarch's 
character with these words of monkish 
consolation : — 

1 Norgate, p. 282. Roger of Wendover, vol. 2, 
p. 378. 

2 Norgate, p. 285. 

3 Ramsay, p. 501. Norgate, p. 285. 

43 



" It is, however, to be confidently hoped that some 
good works which he performed may plead in his 
favor at the tribunal of Jesus Christ ; for he founded 
a monastery of the Cistercian order at Beaulieu, 
and gave to the Abbey of Croxton lands worth ten 
pounds." » 

Strangest of all the contradictions of 
history, the bells of Worcester Cathedral, 
tolling for the burial of John Lackland, 
pealed out the death-knell of the invasion 
led by Louis of France. Had Almighty 
God permitted to the English monarch a 
longer space in which to harry his own 
country, to burn the castles of the nobility 
and the homes and harvests of the poor, 
to rob the most sacred shrines, and to wring 
money from the helpless by inflicting 
agonies of torture, it is at least probable 
that the whole nation would have turned to 
Louis as their only deliverer from horrors 
no longer to be borne. 

But when all over England flew the tid- 
ings that the tyrant had perished, new hope 
sprang in the breasts of the people. And 
when it was known that John in dying had 
committed the guardianship of the heir to 
the throne (then a child of but ten years) to 
the great Earl of Pembroke, Marshal of the 
realm, 2 loyalty to the Plantagenet line surged 
up like the floodtide of the sea. Why, it was 
asked, should Englishmen go pleading with 

1 Wendover, vol. 2 p., 379, foot-note. 

2 Hist, des Dues, p. 180. 

44 



a French prince to accept the crown, when 
an heir of the Angevin house, whose title 
none could question, claimed their fealty. 
True, the young Henry was but a child, 
and with the blood of John Lackland in his 
veins. But the real ruler of the land would 
be the wisest, bravest, and best beloved of 
the nobles of England. William, Earl of 
Pembroke, had been the idol of the English 
people since under Henry the Second he 
had entered upon his chivalrous career. In 
him were blended a dauntless courage, a 
knightly generosity, and a skill as a war- 
rior only equalled by his sagacity in coun- 
sel. 1 The tide of hate, which had reached 
its flood when John ravaged the east- 
ern coast, suddenly turned. Its ebb was 
strangely rapid. Churchmen, terrified by 
the nearer thunders of the papal wrath, fell 
away from the French prince as from a 
leper. Only one bishop continued to stand 
by him. 2 Desertion of a "lost cause' ' 
became the order of the day. Five hun- 
dred of the English nobles who had been 
fighting under the banner of the invader, 
in one day swore allegiance to Henry. 3 
Four times did Louis return to the siege of 
Dover Castle, but as vainly as the surges 
of the Channel beat against Dover cliffs. 
Recognizing his desperate situation, 



1 Norgate, p. 29. Ramsay, p. 423. 

2 Petit-Dutaillis, p. 134. 



Ibid., p. 144. Walter of Coventry, vol. 2, p. 235. 
45 



Louis negotiated a truce (to which neither 
side was faithful) while he crossed to France 
to seek succor among his compatriots. 1 
But wily Philippe Augustus had no wel- 
coming hand to stretch out to the prince 
whom the Pope had styled the French 
King's il Prodigal Son." Philippe even 
declined to speak to Louis. 2 Almost a 
year after his first landing, the prince again 
disembarked at Sandwich, with some re- 
enforcements and a little treasure borrowed 
from his friends. 3 But his return to England 
was the signal for a new and irreparable 
disaster. 4 For some months his forces 
had held the city of Lincoln, while the 
castle overlooking the town was flying the 
banner of King John, and its chatelaine, 
the heroic Dame de la Haye, was flinging 
an Englishwoman's defiance on the for- 
eigners below. On Thursday, the 25th of 
May, 12 17, as Louis was once more ham- 
mering ineffectually at the gates of Dover 
Castle, came the news that Lincoln was 
lost. The hold of the invasion on the 
north of England had been wrenched loose, 
and to render the defeat the more humil- 
iating, the barons to whom the city had 
been intrusted and the flower of the chiv- 

1 Petit-Dutaillis, pp. 139, 141. 
Hist, des Dues, p. 187. Petit-Dutaillis, p. 145. 
Petit-Dutaillis, p. 146. 
Petit-Dutaillis, p. 150-155. 

46 



airy of France were prisoners in the hands 
of the regent. 1 

In that bitter hour the devotion of 
Blanche of Castile led to another and 
supreme effort to save her husband from 
total shipwreck of his enterprise. When 
Philippe Augustus coldly refused to aid his 
son, the faithful Blanche swore that she 
would raise money by mortgaging her two 
children. Unwilling to face such an alter- 
native, the king supplied secretly the treas- 
ure with which Blanche fitted out a fleet of 
eighty ships, bearing three hundred knights 
and their retainers, and carrying to the 
almost despairing prince gold and silver 
and implements of war. 2 On the 22d of 
August a powerful English fleet met the 
French off Dover, and in one of the most 
ferocious, as it was one of the most deci- 
sive, naval combats of the Middle Ages the 
last hope of Louis perished. 3 

It had taken but three months for the 
rising sun of French invasion to climb 
to the zenith of the conquest of England. 
But that August day when the blood of 
the chivalry of France dyed the waters of 
the Channel was the disastrous sunset of an 
ill-starred venture. 

1 Wendover, vol. 2, p. 396. 

2 Preface to Histoire des Dues, p. xxxviii. Petit- 
Dutaillis, p. 163. 

3 Hist, des Dues, pp. 201, 202. Hist, de la Marine 
Fran?aise, pp. 313, 314. 

47 



There is no mystery in the fact that the 
story here related is but little known to 
the average reader of history. It was but 
human on the part of the English historians 
to touch lightly upon the humiliating 
truth that a foreign prince had landed on 
their shores, gained the allegiance of the 
great nobles of the realm, conquered the 
country from the Channel to the Cheviot 
Hills, and held in his grasp for more than 
a year the ancient capital of Edward 
the Confessor and William the Norman. 
Equally did patriotic pride refuse to let 
the annalists of France tell in its minuter 
features how that bold attempt of Louis 
ended in defeat and shame. 1 The true 
picture of the times of John Lackland and 
Louis of France is a mosaic of fragments 
gathered here and there from the records 
of monkish chroniclers, and patiently put 
together. 

It is the thirteenth day of September, in 
the year of grace 12 17. The autumn sun- 
shine falls in yellow light upon the grassy 
meadows of an islet in the river Thames. 2 
There, prostrate on the earth, clad in a 
long white woollen garment, and with 
naked feet, Louis of France grovels in 
penitence for his sins committed against 

1 Preface to Hist, des Dues, p. iv. 

2 Wendover, vol. 2, p. 402. Petit-Dutaillis, p. 170. 

48 



God's vicegerent in the world. High above 
the repentant prince, is throned the haughty 
Gualo, legate of the Pope. Over his head 
a gorgeous canopy is hung. Around him, 
like satellites around the sun, are mitred 
bishops resplendent in jewelled vestments. 
As if at the bar of the Eternal Judge, 
Louis pleads for pardon. He swears 
upon the crucifix to obey henceforth every 
decree of the Church, neither to invade 
England nor make war upon its king, and 
for two years to come to pay a tenth of all 
his revenues to redeem from the infidels 
the Sepulchre of Christ. Then — and 
then only — does the triumphant legate 
deign to lift from this penitent sinner the 
crushing weight of excommunication. 1 

Fifteen days pass by. 2 Two men are 
standing on the quay at Dover, and wav- 
ing farewell to a vessel as she pushes out 
into the Channel. Eighty years of a 
stormy life have not bent the stately figure 
of William of Pembroke, Earl Marshal 
and Regent of the realm. 3 Nor has long 
residence on English soil sufficed to alter 
the cunning of the Italian in the shifty ex- 
pression of Gualo 's eyes. 4 But as Louis 
of France leans on the ship's rail, and 



1 Petit-Dutaillis, pp. 172, 173. 

2 Ibid., p. 178. 

3 Wendover, vol. 2, p. 403. 

4 Petit-Dutaillis, p. 178. 

49 



looks back at the land he has coveted, at 
the grim castle which has withstood his 
four assaults, and at the two men who 
have turned his victory to disaster, bitter 
indeed is his cup of gall. But the west 
wind blows, and the chalk cliffs of Dover 
are fading from his eyes. So in the lapse 
of the centuries has faded into forgetful- 
ness the story of the second Norman Con- 
quest of England. 



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